Wednesday, December 30, 2015

This year's
decision by SEIU to transfer
70,000 long-term care workers out of SEIU-UHW
is sparking continuing anger -- and budget cuts -- at SEIU-UHW.

On December
12, SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan and the
union’s Executive Board approved a budget for 2016 that includes $34 million in
cuts compared to last year’s budget, according to Tasty's sources, board
documents and records from the US Department of Labor.

Altogether, SEIU-UHW’s
budget has dropped from $112 million in 2014 to $78 million in 2016 – a 30%
reduction.

Whereas, SEIU’s implementation of its
decision to divide hospital workers and long term care workers forces changes
to our budget...

Meanwhile...
meeting minutes attempt to put the best face on the budget cuts. Here's how the
minutes describe a presentation to the board about the "budgetary
adjustments" caused by SEIU’s membership transfer:

They described budgetary adjustments made for
the last six months of the year due to the jurisdictional decision to remove
home care and nursing home workers from UHW. They reported that despite these
changes, UHW has sufficient funds and staffing to continue forward with all of
our campaigns and work.

Earlier this
year, Regan raged against the decision of SEIU President Mary Kay Henry and the SEIU
International Executive Board in a leaked letter calling the action a "massive
betrayal." Later, Regan penned an "Open Letter to Leaders in SEIU"
entitled "What
Has Become of Us? The Shame of SEIU."

Here's a
copy of the SEIU-UHW board resolution adopting the sharply reduced budget. (FYI,
the resolution appears to understate the size of the budget cuts, according
to figures that SEIU-UHW submitted to the US Department of Labor).

Which is why
workers were a bit, umm, shocked to read SEIU-UHW's Dec. 14 press release describing
its sell-out contract as "innovative" and "groundbreaking."
Here's an excerpt from the press release, which is posted on SEIU-UHW's website (full copy is below):

As BlueMountain accepts the groundbreaking
deal, it also assumes an innovative new contract that was recently ratified
between 1,900 SEIU-UHW healthcare workers and the Daughters of Charity Health
System. The three-year agreement protects benefits and… (emphasis added)

Workers were
also a tad surprised to see SEIU-UHW "welcoming" BlueMountain Capital as their hospitals'
new owner.

Headquartered on New York’s Park Avenue, BlueMountain is a $22 billion
venture capital firm that makes enormous profits by buying and flipping
companies after loading them with debt and exorbitant management fees.

Andrew Feldstein, CEO of BlueMountain Capital

Over the
weekend, the New York Times described BlueMountain’s role in a scandal brewing
in Puerto Rico. It turns out that BlueMountain and other hedge funds are working
to keep Puerto Rico mired in debt so they can reap billions of dollars in
profits for their wealthy investors. (See "Inside
the Billion-Dollar Battle for Puerto Rico’s Future," New York Times,
December 19, 2015)

Given SEIU's
love of billionaires
and venture
capital titans, perhaps we’ll soon see "Wall Street Dave" and "The
Donald" on the campaign trail together.

The tech
titans are using a classic scheme to boost their profits by ripping off workers. How?

They misclassify
their workers -- including Uber drivers and Handy maids -- as "independent
contractors" rather than employees. As such, the workers have no access to health
insurance, vacation, holidays, retirement, and other benefits; no access to
unemployment insurance and workers compensation; and no company contribution to
Social Security and Medicare. And the workers are unprotected by most federal,
state and local minimum wage laws and other labor protections. And they can’t
form unions.

It's the
same scam used by FedEx, trucking companies at ports, and other greedy
companies.

In
California, Uber drivers are
suing their $62 billion company to be reclassified as employees and to
collect millions of dollars in mileage reimbursement and tips, which the
company has never paid to drivers. The suit could affect 160,000 workers.

SEIU
officials -- rather than backing the workers -- decided to become BFFs with the
CEOs of Uber, Lyft, Handy and other such corporations. Earlier this month, they
co-signed a lame, milk-toast letter that fails to take these corporations to
task for ripping off their workforces.

Instead, SEIU’s
joint letter offers hollow platitudes and vague proclamations -- with no
concrete commitments or funding from the corporations -- that are summed up in
the following excerpt from the joint letter:

Everyone, regardless of employment
classification, should have access to the option of an affordable safety net
that supports them when they’re injured, sick, in need of professional growth,
or when it’s time to retire.

SEIU is the
only union to sign the letter… which was also signed by Eli Lehrer, the President of "The R Street Institute," a
right-wing think tank inspired by Milton
Friedman and Frederick Hayek. By the way, the R Street Institute is
reportedly pushing for legislation to make it easier for companies to classify
what their workers as "independent contractors."

According to
the lawsuit, Regan funneled $10 million of SEIU-UHW members' union dues into a bank
account controlled by fatcat CEOs.

That is...
until Regan's secret deal with the hospital bosses exploded in flames.

Now, Regan
is suing the CEOs in hopes of recovering $7 million of the $10 million. Here's what
SEIU-UHW says in its
lawsuit filed Nov. 24 in Sacramento County Superior Court:

CHA and UHW committed to each other to fund
CFC. In accordance with this commitment, CHA agreed to provide $80 million in
funding to CFC, and UHW agreed to provide $20 million in funding. To date, CHA
and UHW have contributed half of their funding obligations to CFC. CFC
currently holds more than $7 million dollars of UHW contributions… (p. 6)

What
happened to the other $3 million?

Apparently,
it’s already been spent.

Regan and his CEO pals have reportedly been writing fat checks
for consultants, lawyers, offices, trips, fancy meetings, and staff -- including
the hiring of Peter
Ragone as the Executive Director of Regan's now-defunct "partnership"
organization.

Peter Ragone: Exec Dir. of imploded partnership orgz'n

In total, $3 million of SEIU-UHW members' money has disappeared
down the sewer like a prodigious purple bowel movement.

As far as
the remaining $7 million, it’s currently frozen beyond SEIU-UHW's reach because,
according to the terms of Regan's secret deal with the California Hospital
Association, it can only be transferred with the consent of Duane Dauner, says
the lawsuit.

CFC owns, possesses, and has a right to
possess the funds within its bank account, including those lent to it by UHW. Defendants
intentionally and in a gross abuse of their authority as Directors of CFC substantially
interfered with CFC's property by terminating all operations of CFC by vetoing
any proposed expenditures. (p. 18)

In other
words, the $7 million is sequestered beyond SEIU-UHW's reach. "UHW has suffered
and will continue to suffer substantial and irreparable harm," says the
suit (p. 22).

Will
SEIU-UHW members ever recover their $7 million? Good question.

And here's an even bigger question posed by observers:

Why did
SEIU-UHW's Executive Board ever authorize Regan to gamble upwards of $25 million of
union members' dues on a hare-brained scheme that has exploded in flames and has landed SEIU-UHW in a desperate and expensive court battle?

Thursday, December 3, 2015

Here's the
latest on SEIU-UHW's ramrod
ratification votes at the Daughters of Charity Health System, where SEIU-UHW officials have once again forced massive wage and benefit cuts down the throats of 2,000 workers employed at four California hospitals.

As expected,
a closer reading of the agreement negotiated by SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan
has revealed a lengthy list of cuts in addition to Regan's blockbuster concession that
strips hundreds of workers of health insurance, sick leave,
retirement, and other benefits.

Here's a
fuller list of the cuts. Below, Tasty has posted a copy of the full agreement as well as a two-page summary that SEIU-UHW staffers handed out to workers.

Wage scales are frozen. SEIU-UHW members will no longer receive "step increases" according to their years of service on the job.

Part-time
employees who work between 20-30 hours per week are
no longer eligible for any benefits, including health insurance, vacation,
holidays, sick pay, retirement, etc.

"Education
Leave" and "Jury Duty Leave" are eliminated.

Retiree
Health Benefits are eliminated for workers at St. Louise Regional Hospital and O'Connor Hospital.
In the prior contract ("Article 23:
Retirement" on page 112-113), the company was required to pay up to 75% of
the cost of monthly health premiums for employees who leave their jobs after
attaining age 55 and completing at least 10 years of service.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

Short Call
Pay is eliminated.

"Float
Differentials" are eliminated.

Paid Time Off
(PTO) accruals will be reduced by 16 hours every year of the agreement.

"Extended
Sick Leave accruals will be reduced by 1/2 of the amount in year 1 and 2 of the
agreement."

SEIU-UHW
accepted a new management rights clause.

Contract provisions
on Holidays, Call Offs, Daily Cancellation, Seniority, Job Vacancies, PTO, and
Union Membership were reduced to the lowest standard across the four SEIU-UHW hospitals, meaning that workers at three of the four hospitals will experience
reductions.

Despite
these cuts and reports of overwhelming "no" votes at the ramrod
ratification votes, SEIU-UHW says its sellout agreement was somehow approved by
the membership. As reported
earlier, SEIU-UHW's lengthy delay in reporting the outcome of the votes has led to widespread discussion of ballot staffing and vote fraud.

For Dave Regan, however, the sellout
contract is a "Victory!" Here's a
post from SEIU-UHW's twitter page:

Meanwhile, here's a report
from an SEIU-UHW member at one hospital:

I work at O’Connor Hospital and am an SEIU
member. The dealings re. this “tentative
agreement” of two weeks ago were so secretive that many of us didn’t even know
about the vote until after it had taken
place. My own shop steward (who was a
member of the negotiating team) failed to tell me about the vote, nor the fact
that they had agreed to the clause “all past practices will be eliminated with
the exception of prior arbitration decisions,” which is a loophole wide enough
to drive a truck through. Apparently
that would supersede previous agreements not to outsource work, which would
majorly impact my job security due to the nature of my job.

Apparently the new “buyer” of the hospital,
Blue Mountain, has learned from some of the mistakes of their predecessor of
last year, Prime Healthcare, and instead of trying to fight the SEIU management
they have made some sort of quid pro quo with them, thus the alacrity with
which SEIU reps have soiled their credibility for all eternity, caught with
both hands in the cookie jar and their pants down simultaneously.

People need to go to jail here. This is a clear conspiracy to commit major
fraud.

And here's a
report from a second worker:

It kinda feels like battered wife syndrome here.
Some are angry and lots are in some sort of a state of denial. SEIU has
announced a "membership" meeting where I guess they will try to
convince us what a great deal they got us. It's funny but here SEIU said we
neeed these cuts because off the shape the Daughters were in. Forget that the
new Boss has a war chest of $20 Billion at hand. The funny part is the Boss has
referred to what got taken away as "waste". Our pay is
"waste" but the 4 clowns who make up Verity Health have no waste
whatsoever in their collective $58 million dollars a year in pay. I wonder what
logic SEIU used in previous takeaways from Kaiser and Dignity who both were
making record profits at the time of the cuts.

Wednesday, December 2, 2015

In case
there was any doubt about the implosion
of Dave Regan's partnership with the
California Hospital Association (CHA),
check out the latest news...

On November
24, SEIU-UHW sued the CHA’s CEO Duane
Dauner in Sacramento County (Calif.) Superior Court for ditching Regan in
favor of his new pals Mary Kay Henry,
Laphonza Butler, Jon Youngdahl, the SEIU California State Council, the California Teachers Association, and the California Medical Association.

The full lawsuit
is available below. Also, here’s a link to a
Dec. 1 article in "Courthouse News."

Regan’s
lawsuit -- which reads like a jilted lover’s divorce case -- revolves around Mary
Kay Henry’s recent success in outmaneuvering Regan by inking her own secret
deal with the CHA.

Under Henry’s
deal, the CHA agreed to team up with the SEIU California State Council, the
California Teachers Association and the California Medical Association to introduce
a statewide ballot initiative that competes head-to-head with Regan’s
initiative. Regan's ballot initiative was supposed to be the "centerpiece" of SEIU-UHW’s ongoing
partnership and organizing deal with the CHA.

Not anymore. The CHA has pulled its support from Regan's initiative, which is now "certain to fail," according to the lawsuit.

Mary Kay Henry and Laphonza Butler

Basically, the
CHA has declared an end to its "partnership" with SEIU-UHW, thereby
jettisoning Wall Street Dave like a pair of old shoes. That means an end to
Regan's plans to unionize 60,000 hospital workers under a sweetheart deal that gags
healthcare workers, bans them from striking, and forces them into contracts
with substandard wages and benefits… which Regan famously called an "audacious
new proposal to save the labor movement."

This ain't
good news for Regan.

He’s poured $15-20
million of SEIU-UHW members' dues into his failed partnership with the CHA. And
he’s staked SEIU-UHW's entire future -- including its membership growth and
labor relations strategies -- on a partnership that's been relegated to the trash bin.

No wonder Dave
is coming unhinged.

Last month,
he penned an angry letter ("The Shame of SEIU") in response to SEIU's secret
deal with the CHA, in which he wrote he's "repulsed and disgusted" by
SEIU officials who are selfishly pursuing "control, internal power and organizational
dominance."

In Dave’s
latest act of vengeance, he filed a 23-page lawsuit against Dauner and three
other CHA officials… including Greg
Adams, a top Kaiser Permanente
executive who also serves as the chair of the CHA's Board of Directors. Mark Laret, the CEO of UCSF Medical Center, is another
defendant.

Regan's attack
on Kaiser's Greg Adams is intriguing and may signal the unraveling of SEIU-UHW’s
partnership with Kaiser. According to Regan's suit, Greg Adams "accepted
and enabled" the CHA's decision to throw SEIU-UHW under the bus. In
addition, Adams "agreed to shut down" the CHA's labor-management cooperation
committee with SEIU-UHW, according to the suit, effectively putting the kibosh
on Regan's partnership with the CHA.

Defendant Greg Adams, Kaiser Permanente

Here are
some excerpts from Regan's suit, which predictably contains plenty of
ranting and raving. For example, the lawsuit calls Dauner "corrupt" in
its opening line.

The suit
also makes interesting claims about secret meetings and clandestine maneuvers carried out by Purple Palace officials in their plot against Regan, as well as
the impact of SEIU’s recent decision to strip 80,000 members from SEIU-UHW and
transfer them to "SEIU Local 2015."

The
following excerpts refer to the two groups that have introduced competing
ballot initiatives: the "ABC
Coalition" (i.e., the CHA, SEIU California State Council, the
California Teachers Association, and the California Medical Association) and
the "CFC" (SEIU-UHW).

At or around the same time CFC was
developing its idea of a ballot initiative to fix and fully fund the Medi-Cal
program, a separate coalition that includes the California Teachers Association
("CTA"), the California Medical Association ("CMA"), and
the SEIU State Council ("State Council) (collectively known as the
"ABC Coalition"), began to develop a competing ballot initiative…

Defendant Dauner intentionally opposed the
filing of CFC's initiative prior to the filing of the ABC Coalition's
initiative for a nefarious purpose -- that is, in order to put CFC's initiative
at a disadvantage, while providing both a strategic and procedural advantage to
the ABC Coalition. Defendant Dauner, however, kept to himself the fact that he
had been secretly working with the ABC Coalition to undermine CFC's initiative…

In or around March 2015, Defendant Dauner
had been secretly meeting with members of the ABC Coalition, although the ABC
Coalition had not yet been formally organized…

During this same period, Defendant Dauner
also met with representatives of the SEIU State Council in order to keep them
informed of the business of CFC, including but not limited to CFC's
confidential "Strategic Plan." The SEIU State Council is led by Jon
Youngdahl ("Youngdahl"), who is the Executive Director of the State
Council, and Laphonza Butler ("Butler"), who is the President of the
State Council.

In addition, Butler is the President of the
SEIU, United Long-Term Care Workers ("ULTCW") as well as the provisional
President of SEIU, Local 2015. Local 2015 represents approximately 285,000
home-care and nursing home workers m California… Local 2015 is the result of a
merger of home care and nursing home members from three SEIU-affiliated Unions:
SEIU Local 521, ULTCW, and UHW. As a result of the merger, UHW lost half its
membership to Local 2015.

Prior to the merger, representatives of the
SEIU State Council informed Defendant Dauner that Regan would soon lose half of
UHW's membership and that Defendant Dauner needed to deal with Butler and the
State Council – not Regan and UHW – if he wanted to accomplish any legislative
and policy goals that were important to CHA's members.

Beginning in or around March 2015, Defendant
Dauner decided to work covertly with CMA, the SEIU State Council, and CTA,
while duplicitously pretending to carry out his duties as a Director and
Officer in the interest of CFC.

Defendant Dauner chose to work with the ABC
Coalition for several reasons. First, he feared CTA's political reach in
Sacramento. Second, he no longer wanted to be involved in a "strategic
partnership" with UHW because the partnership was threatening his power
within CHA, and members of CHA were calling for an end to the partnership for
ideological reasons. Third, he believed that he could take advantage of an
internal SEIU disagreement between Butler and Regan regarding the transfer of
UHW members into Local 2015…

On November 2, 2015, Defendant Dauner
requested a conference call with Regan and multiple other persons, including
other Directors of CFC to discuss CFC's initiative and his agreement with the
ABC Coalition.

On the call, Defendant Dauner revealed that
he had been secretly meeting and negotiating with the ABC Coalition regarding
its competing initiative…

Defendant Dauner explained that he had
engaged in these covert actions because the CHA Board of Directors had
instructed him to do so and that a "substantial number of hospitals,"
affiliated with CHA did not want CHA to participate in CFC or to continue its
partnership with UHW. The reason that a substantial number of hospitals wanted
to end the strategic partnership between CHA and UHW is because these hospitals
are philosophically opposed to the unionization of the hospital industry and
seek to remain non-union so that they may continue, without interference, to
provide their employees substandard working conditions, pay, and benefits.
Because the ABC Coalition does not consist of any labor organization that seeks
to organize hospital workers in California, working with the ABC Coalition is
preferred over working with UHW.

During the call, Defendant Dauner revealed
that his discussions with the ABC Coalition had led to a written agreement,
executed by and between CTA, CMA, and the SEIU State Council and Defendant
Dauner and CHA.

According to Dauner, the agreement with the
ABC Coalition provides that Defendants and CHA will jointly sponsor, and
contribute financially to the ABC Coalition's The School Funding and Stability Act of 2016 that is in direct competition
with CFC's initiative, Invest in
California's Children Act.

Defendant Dauner further agreed to "to
veto any expenditure" to support CFC's initiative, and [Kaiser’s Greg] Adams,
[UCSF’s Mark] Laret and Holmes agreed to support Dauner in this cessation of
CFC's activities. Thus, the CHA Directors agreed to terminate all of CFC's
operations by using Defendant Dauner's veto power.

Put otherwise, Defendant Dauner agreed to
use his position of power to quash CFC's initiative and to support the ABC
Coalition's competing initiative, and the other CHA Directors accepted and enabled
this decision. As a result, lacking any financial support, CFC's initiative is certain
to fail and the ABC Coalition's initiative will have no effective opposition…

Adams, Laret and Holmes approved this sale
after the fact and have since agreed to shut down CFC as part of the deal with
the ABC Coalition…

On November 18, 2015, Defendants spoke with
Regan regarding the ABC Coalition's initiative. Defendants pleaded with Regan
to dissolve CFC. Regan, however, refused to agree to dissolution. In accordance
with his agreement with the ABC Coalition, Defendant Dauner stated that he
would exercise his veto power, as Co-Chair, on any and all decisions that came
before CFC regarding expenditures related to CFC's initiative, which CFC had
unanimously voted to file and fund.

The lawsuit alleges
that Dauner, Kaiser's Greg Adams, and CHA officials have committed fraud,
concealment, breach of fiduciary duty, "conversion," "trespass
to chattel," and other "fraudulent or dishonest acts or gross abuse
of authority or discretion." It seeks to force the CHA to pay financial
damages to SEIU-UHW and also seeks the removal of the CHA's Dauner from
his position as a co-chair of the joint labor-management committee set up by
the CHA and SEIU-UHW. Regan is the other co-chair.

Monday, November 30, 2015

Tasty recently
described how SEIU’s Mary Kay Henry
and her allies in California have intensified their fight against Dave Regan by introducing two statewide
ballot initiatives that are competing head-to-head with ones introduced by
Regan’s SEIU-UHW.

The strange turn of events reflects a
long-simmering feud between the Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
state council, made up of SEIU locals throughout California and encompassing
over 700,000 members, and one of its affiliates, SEIU-United Healthcare Workers
West (UHW). SEIU-UHW already has their minimum wage initiative in the field,
but the state council announced theirs anyway. Both sides believe the dispute
will eventually reach some resolution. But the ugly legacy of distrust and
backbiting threatens to put low-wage workers in the middle of a squabble they
had nothing to do with.

Regan, who has been criticized by some labor
and consumer advocates for putting together a favorable deal with the
California Hospital Association that included de facto gag orders on workers
over quality and safety issues, clashed with new SEIU President Mary Kay Henry.
In a move first attempted back in 2009 when Rosselli was at the controls,
Henry’s SEIU split the UHW local, taking 70,000 members away. In a leaked memo,
Regan called the move a “massive betrayal of our stated principles and values,”
although he favored such a carve-up in 2009. UHW has been labeled hypocritical
corporate sellouts on one side, and SEIU International an unfeeling autocracy
on the other.

Here's more:

On the other hand, SEIU-UHW has a history of
announcing ballot measures without much follow-through. In 2014, they used the
threat of initiatives to cap CEO pay at hospitals and prices for medical
treatment to make their deal with the California Hospital Association. While
the local has gathered signatures before, they’ve never organized to win their
own ballot measure, a costly proposition estimated at between $20-$30 million.

While declining to give specific figures,
Trossman said “we’re going to spend millions of dollars to pass this thing,”
and that he was confident UHW “will be able to attract money from big and small
donors,” suggesting a strategy of qualifying for the ballot first and
fundraising later. Kristin Lynch, spokeswoman for SEIU 1021, said they and
their coalition partners are prepared to spend the $20-$30 million necessary.
“We’re confident that this speaks to the will of the people,” Lynch said.

Obviously, whatever faction responsible for
a living wage victory will carry clout in California and a leg up on organizing
grateful low-wage workers. And with UHW needing to prove their worth as the
international SEIU pulls them apart, they are unlikely to give up that opportunity,
especially if they are already eligible for the ballot. “I can’t imagine that
[the state council] would spend millions of dollars on something that for all
intents and purposes has qualified,” said UHW’s Steve Trossman.

Jamie Court of the veteran state progressive
organization Consumer Watchdog believes that SEIU-UHW’s Regan could be using
leverage from the ballot measure to get his members back. “You never know
what’s on a desperate man’s mind,” Court said. “It’s his way of shaking down
the labor movement.”

Tuesday, November 24, 2015

Here's the
latest from SEIU-UHW's ramrod
ratification vote for approximately 2,000 workers at
the Daughtersof Charity Health System in California.

Early last
week, SEIU-UHW officials held rushed votes in an effort to "ratify" a
tentative agreement for a three-year contract that’s filled with cuts to workers’ benefits.

For example,
SEIU-UHW’s Dave Regan agreed to
eliminate benefits for hundreds of workers by gutting the "benefit-eligibility
standards" for part-time workers. This concession alone will save the company millions of dollars a year and will leave hundreds of workers without health insurance for themselves and their children... not to mention sick leave, vacation pay, retirement benefits, etc.

Regan also agreed to eliminate retiree
health benefits for all employees at St.
Louise Regional Hospital and O'Connor
Hospital, according to a copy of the deal.

Despite
SEIU-UHW's rush-job votes, on November 17th workers at St. Louise and O'Connor voted
by large margins to reject the tentative agreement, according to workers.

In the days after the votes, however, SEIU-UHW was mysteriously silent. Here's a
report from one worker:

Typically, the union makes an announcement
almost immediately the evening after the vote finishes. There has been a
deathly silence from them since the vote. But, apparently the union feels more
aligned with the Boss because an email was just sent out by Julie Hatcher (head
of HR at O'Connor) to all Managers announcing that the CBA has been ratified,
but, employees have heard nothing from SEIU. Despite reports from all hospitals
that there was an overwheming no vote, the yes votes appeared by magic in the
ballot boxes and the deed was done.

Workers say
SEIU-UHW's crooked ratification vote is just one of many dirty tricks it deployed
against workers during contract negotiations.

At O'Connor Hospital,
workers report that the union's bargaining committee was hand-picked by
SEIU-UHW staffer Val
Tagawa, instead of being elected by members.

In addition, SEIU-UHW
refused to provide members with the dates and times of bargaining sessions, and it kept secret the location of negotiating sessions, say workers. A second
SEIU-UHW staffer named Jackie flat
out refused union members' request to attend the negotiations, according to
workers.

These actions kept workers in the dark about the deep cuts that SEIU-UHW was accepting at the bargaining table.

It’s
Regan’s latest attempt to pressure the CHA into an act of industrial
love-making that’s been widely criticized for trading away workers' wages,
benefits, working conditions, and their right to advocate for patients.

In
response to the announcement, CHA’s CEO Duane Dauner issued a
press release on November 20 attacking SEIU-UHW and declaring an end to CHA’s
partnership with SEIU-UHW. The CHA’s press release begins this way:

Filing
of Harmful Ballot Measure by SEIU-UHW is an Abuse of California’s Initiative
Process

Today’s decision by SEIU-UHW (UHW) to file a harmful
ballot measure that will negatively impact the operations of hospitals
throughout California is an abuse of the state’s initiative process and violates
a May 5, 2014 agreement negotiated between the California Hospital Association
(CHA) and UHW.

…

This is the third time
UHW has attempted to use the initiative process to further its organizing
agenda. As was the case in 2011-12 and 2013-14, the measure filed today does
nothing to fix Medi-Cal or increase access to hospital services.

CHA is evaluating
appropriate actions to pursue in light of this filing.

Of
course, Regan's deal with the CHA has been on the rocks for months.

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan

In
August, Dauner told industry executives that Regan was failing to deliver on
his promise to funnel billions more dollars of tax-payer funds into industry
executives' pockets, and that Regan was also failing to unionize hospital workers under
the sweetheart deal, according to leaked
recordings from a CHA conference call.

Also in August, Regan began to threaten to re-file ballot initiatives, which Dauner said
would precipitate a "nuclear war" that would "blow up"
SEIU-UHW's relationship with the CHA.

Last
week, a purple mushroom cloud signaled the official end of Wall Street Dave's
bromance with Duane.

Last week's collapse is also a giant financial failure. Regan has already
gambled upwards of $20 million of SEIU-UHW members' union dues on his CHA
strategy. In return, SEIU-UHW has successfully unionized only 70 workers under the
deal. Ouch!

Can
Regan once again use statewide ballot measures to pressure the CHA to climb back
into bed with SEIU-UHW (presumably, at an even cheaper price)?

CHA's Duane Dauner

It's
unclear.

First, Regan will need to spend another $4-5 million simply to collect
enough signatures to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

Meanwhile, Regan appears to have limited cash at his disposal. He's currently spending $4
million to qualify an unrelated ballot initiative to raise the statewide minimum
wage, even as Mary Kay Henry and the
SEIU California State Councilpush
a competing measure.

In
June, SEIU-UHW's Executive Board authorized Regan to use $4 million from the
sale of SEIU-UHW's San Francisco office to fund his minimum wage ballot
initiative, according to official meeting minutes dated June 3, 2015. If
SEIU-UHW actually wants to win the minimum wage measure, it will need to spend
millions more.

Where
will the money come from?

Earlier this year, Regan lost half of SEIU-UHW's membership in a battle with SEIU's national leaders, thereby slashing SEIU-UHW's revenues and COPE funds.

And
then there's the problem of a new state law (Senate Bill 1253) authored by former Sen. Darrell Steinberg that criminalizes
the misuse of California ballot initiatives to extort "any thing of value…
for the purpose of withdrawing an initiative petition after filing it with the
appropriate elections official."

Wednesday, November 18, 2015

SEIU-UHW's Dave Regan
is once again trying to shove massive takeaways down the throats of several
thousand workers at the Daughters of
Charity Health System, according to workers at the chain's hospitals.

As
in 2012, Regan has launched a series of ramrod ratification votes aimed at
pushing a sell-out contract through the union's membership.

Yesterday,
SEIU-UHW staffers conducted "ratification votes" at O'Connor Hospital in San Jose, Calif.
and St. Louise Regional Hospital in
Gilroy, Calif. for a tentative agreement that’s "the worst contract in our
history," according to a worker and SEIU-UHW member.

Among the contract's givebacks is a mega-whopper.

According to
contract language leaked to Tasty, Regan has agreed to slash and burn eligibility
standards for workers' benefits (e.g., health insurance, vacation pay, sick pay,
retirement, etc) so that hundreds of SEIU-UHW members would be stripped of their benefits,
including the health insurance for their children.

What did Regan
do?

Under the current
contract, workers are eligible for benefits as long as they work half time or more – that
is, at least 20 hours per week. This is a decades-old, industry-wide eligibility
standard established by Local 250 and Sal Rosselli's union. Here's the actual
language from the current contract between SEIU-UHW and the Daughters of
Charity will (see the language for "Regular Part-time" employees):

Next, here's
the NEW language that Regan inked during secret negotiations with company
executives. This is the new standard that Regan is trying to ram down workers’
throats. Workers would be required to work at least three-quarters time (30
hours per week) to qualify for health insurance and other benefits. A source leaked the following excerpt
from Regan’s tentative contract language:

If SEIU-UHW establishes this standard with
the six-hospital Daughters of Charity chain, other large hospital chains like
Kaiser Permanente, Dignity Health, and Sutter Health will inevitably demand the
same concession.

At
yesterday's ratification vote at St. Louise Regional Medical Center, only 16
workers voted in favor of SEIU-UHW's sell-out contract, according to workers at
the facility. SEIU-UHW reportedly provided so little advance notice to workers that
only one-third of the eligible workers were able to cast ballot.

One worker reported the following:

Most members were not even aware that
bargaining was happening… SEIU came in a few days ago and announced that it was
a done deal!We have been unable to
see the full contract, yet they are holding the vote as I write this! When we found out last week that bargaining
was going on, several members asked to attend and were told it was being held
in a secret place… It turns out no representative came to the hospital to
inform us there was a vote, but one rep came and said, "The contract is
settled, it's a done deal."

Another Daughters
of Charity worker offered this comment about SEIU-UHW:

It is obvious that we have a union that is
simply an extension of the employer who we have to pay dues to for the
privelidge of hearing the same arguments made by the employer against worker's
best interests. It's a sad day for Labor.

Meanwhile,
Tasty hears that workers at nearby Seton
Medical Center -- a Daughters of Charity hospital where approximately 700
workers successfully decertified SEIU-UHW and joined NUHW -- are jumping for joy now that they’re
finally out of SEIU-UHW.

In his
latest letters, Regan says he is "repulsed and disgusted" by SEIU’s
leaders who are selfishly pursuing "control, internal power and
organizational dominance."

And that's
just the beginning of Regan's rant.

In an "Open
Letter to Leaders in SEIU" entitled "What Has Become of Us? The Shame of SEIU," Regan accuses
SEIU’s leaders of being "consumed with power and domination in the service
of nothing but appetite."

In case Regan's
phrasing seems a bit whacky ("in the service of nothing but appetite"),
Dave's letter also includes a quote from William Shakespeare.

It appears
that Purple Palace officials have stepped up their war against Regan following their
earlier successful effort to slash SEIU-UHW’s membership by 60,000 members.

In recent
weeks, SEIU officials outmaneuvered Regan by inking their own secret deal with the
California Hospital Association (CHA),
thereby driving another nail into the coffin of Regan's secret pact with the CHA…
which, by the way, has been languishing on its deathbed for months.

How did the
SEIU officials do it?

According to
the terms of Regan's CHA deal, Dave is required to secure billions
of dollars of new government revenues for California hospital companies in
order to win the right to unionize 100,000 hospital workers. In recent weeks, however, Purple Palace officials teamed
up with the California Teachers
Association, California GovernorJerry Brown, and the CHA to sponsor
an initiative that undercuts Regan's scheme for delivering billions of dollars to
the hospital bosses.

This "chess
move" has Regan spitting mad.

SEIU's Henry and Butler

In his two
letters, Dave personally attacks Gov. Jerry Brown, the California Teachers
Association, the Hospital Association, Laphonza
Butler (President of the SEIU California State Council), Jon Youngdahl (Executive Director of
the SEIU California State Council), and other SEIU leaders.

Oh, and
Regan also attacks his former bunkmate, Duane
Dauner (the CEO of the California Hospital Association), for inking a backroom
deal with his SEIU rivals.

Regan is so angry that he sent a letter to the CHA's
membership trashing Dauner for being weak and ineffective, for selling out his members'
interests, committing "monumental failures," and (more generally) for
"the failure of Duane Dauner."

Nice.

Talk about
burning bridges. Regan's hate mail appears to signal that his "visionary,"
21st century deal with the CHA is as dead as a doornail.

In SEIU's second
attack on Regan, SEIU recently announced it’s sponsoring a statewide ballot
initiative in California that competes directly with one that SEIU-UHW has been
pursuing for months. Essentially, the SEIU California State Council and various
SEIU local unions across the state are waging a head-to-head ballot fight against SEIU-UHW, which the Los Angeles Times describes this way in a recent
article:

The fractious internal politics of one of
California’s most powerful unions spilled into the movement to raise the
statewide minimum wage Tuesday, as one wing of the Service Employees
International Union announced a proposed ballot initiative that would compete
with a measure backed by another branch of the labor group.

In his recently leaked letters, Regan attacks SEIU officials for conducting secret talks with the CHA:

SEIU's Jon Youngdahl

"These meetings with the Association
representing all of UHW's hospital employers were never disclosed by either
Butler or Youngdahl to UHW and clearly were intended to undermine and
destabilize the hospital organizing work UHW was told to 'focus' on."

He goes on
to attack SEIU's national leadership for being "insecure and weak" and
also accuses them of "sabotage," "threats,"
"retaliation," and "impunity."

Here's more
from Dave:

What are the implications for SEIU as
a whole when the elected leader of the State Council takes it upon herself to
secretly communicate with another local's employers and the employer
Association for the sole purpose of sabotaging both the organizing and
political work of that local?

What are the implications for the
health and future of SEIU when UHW is forced to pay $2.5 million per year -- or
be threatened with all manner of retaliation -- to a State Council that has
license from the national leadership of SEIU to sabotage with impunity the
legitimate work of UHW?

What does it mean when the national
leadership of our union, and the state leadership of our Council, is so
insecure and weak that they could even contemplate, let alone act upon, the
sort of destructive behavior have recently been subjected to?

CHA's Duane Dauner

Cry me a
river, right?

It's always quite entertaining to see Backroom Dave -- whose snake-like
qualities have never been mistaken for moral righteousness -- try to portray himself as the innocent victim of unscrupulous evildoers.

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